Exploring different kinds of music history with noise-jazz legends Borbetomagus, guitarist and archivist Nathan Salsburg, and darkwave veterans Lycia.

Compared to most improvised experimental outfits, Borbetomagus haven’t released records at a particularly high rate. But since they’ve been around for almost 35 years, their discography is naturally still pretty large. It’s also diverse and high-quality; the band is pretty picky about what they’re willing to put out there, and thus no Borbetomagus album feels rote or phoned-in. That makes choosing the best or recommending entry points a difficult task, so consider this brief list less a greatest-hits than a sampling of the wide creative variety they’ve mined from such a devout sound.

Photo by Eva Maria Ocherbauer

BORBETOMAGUS ALBUMS

Borbetomagus (aka Sauter, Dietrich, Miller) (Agaric, 1982)

This is third Borbetomagus album, and their second self-titled one (to add to the confusion, they didn’t actually have a band name on their debut, but when they put the word Borbetomagus (from the Celtic name for the German city Worms on the cover, reviewers referred to them as such, so they adopted it). Featuring three live tracks and one studio jam, Borbetomagus is an excellent sample of how diverse their aggression could be early on. One piece recorded at NYC’s In Roads features the electronics of early member Brian Doherty, while another documents an infamous gig at Bergen Community College in New Jersey, wherein you can actually hear the crowd’s confusion. According to Sauter, the student booker berated them between sets, demanding that they not continue to play that way. Sauter replied, “We can't play what we just did because of the nature of what we do is largely improvisational.”

Zurich (Agaric, 1985)

A clearly-recorded, intensely-inspired live recording from the trio’s first European tour. The level of detail is stunning; you can practically see the band’s lungs expanding and fingers moving as you listen, and as a result music that to the uninitiated might seem random or messy reveals itself to be intricate and suprisingly rangy. As Miller puts it, “This was our first extended tour-- our first chance to seriously work out on a regular basis. Once we got to Zurich, and saw it was a great hall with great sound, it was like, ok, this is our chance to shine, guys. We were ready for it and we just jumped on it.” (Read more Borbetomagus memories of Zurich in Phil Freeman’s recent interview at Burning Ambulance)

Borbetomagus: "Pink Pants"

Buncha Hair That Long (Agaric, 1992)

A collection of live recordings from 1991, this is one of Borbetomagus’s most sonically-diverse releases, moving from heavy, growling noise to churning, electronic-sounding drone to a track called “In The Nursery” that mixes trebly test-tone whine with moments of-- could it be?-- near-silence. The album ends with a 16-minute “cover’ of the Beatles’ “Blue Jay Way” recorded at CBGB’s. For that show, the trio were all plugged into a single bass amp, and the result is a sonic tidal wave that’s both terrifying and weirdly calm-- not unlike the original in spirit, if light-years away in execution.

Trente Belles Années (Agaric, 2012)

In 2009 Borbetomagus embarked upon a 30th anniversary tour of Europe, ending in France at a venue called Instants Chavirés. This album documents that final gig in single, untitled 46-minute track. It’s an exhilirating if exhausting thing to take on in one sitting, but jump around the piece and it’s impressive how many different moods and textures the trio traverse while moving full-speed ahead the entire time. It’s also amazing how much energy and urgency they still throw into their musical attack this deep into the game; any artists hoping to sustain a three-decade career would do well to study the bracing passion and firepower Borbetomagus still bring to the table.

Borbetomagus: "Trente"

SIDE PROJECTS

Jim Sauter and Don Dietrich - Bells Together (Agaric, 1985)

It’s fitting that this album features liner notes by the publisher of “Recordings of Experimental Music,” because it’s almost like a demonstration record. Anyone fascinated by the “bells together” technique can audition it in here its purest state, through six acoustic, unaffected tracks of Sauter and Dietrich playing nothing but locked horns. But Bells Together is much more than a technical accomplishment: it’s also overflowing with arresting sounds and moments of mystery. Even though we know how they’re doing it, it’s still hard to believe they are. The tones and timbres the pair get are otherwordly, and often sound electronically generated despite being purely acoustic. There are ebbs and flows, tides and pools, but in the end what impresses most is how nothing else sounds like what Sauter and Dietrich create. (As a bonus, the album cover offers a photo of the pair as kindergaren classmates).

At first glance this record feels like a put-on. It’s Max Ernst cover art seems vaguely ironic, and the liner notes supposedly penned by Thomas Pynchon (who claims credit for the group’s creation) are clearly a joke. But the music is as serious as a sound-induced heart attack. Moore’s guitar work is never as vital here as Miller’s is in Borbetomagus, but it has a compelling fludity (and at times a Sonic Youth-like chime) that Sauter and Dietrich milk for maximal effect. The result on “Tanned Moon” is something like a noise seance, whereas on 19-minute closer “Concerning the Sun as a Cool Solid,” this one-off trio sounds capable of floating to the moon and back, were they ever to decide to reunite and blast off again.

Like Bells Together, this record offers a chance to hear an element of Borbetomagus-- Miller’s willdly unique guitar playing-- in its pure, isolated state. And as with Bells Together, it’s mind-boggling how Miller is able to get such alien, unheard sounds out of such a familiar instrument. It’s also surprising how minimal Miller can be. He’s happy to alternate shrieks and static blasts with moments of pause or even actual silence, but never for long; he’s always on to the next sound or idea before you can absorb the one that came before. At times it’s like you’re listening to his brain waves rather than his guitar strings, and mapping out the way his mind works is a task that A Little Treatise on Morals rewards handsomely.

Among the three full-length collaborations between Borbetomagus and the Swiss “cracked electronics” duo Voice Crack, the first, 1988’s Fish that Sparkling Bubble, is probably the best. But I return more often to this 1997 release, recorded live at the Carnegie Recital Hall in New York. It’s pretty brutal, with tons of piercing sound penetrating the stereo space; these four never let up in terms of creative noise-generation. But there is a moment about halfway through the 14-minute-long closing track where things calm a bit, fading into radio static and chopped horns. It’s one of the most serene moments in the Borbetomagus oeuvre, and one that inspires them and Voice Crack into an album-ending fury made all the more impressive by the delicacy that preceded. -- Marc Masters